Relative Abundance and Biomass of Exotic Fish in Roadway Corridors

Nicholas Brandimarte, Andrew Tabaque, Betsy A. Evans, Dale E. Gawlik

Abstract

The introduction of exotic fish has been detrimental to wetland ecosystems, thus making it important to understand their distributions in respect to roadway corridors in the South Florida region. We sampled fish with modified minnow traps at 18 study sites within three different landscape (urban, herbaceous marsh, forested marsh) and habitat type features (storm water ponds and canals) in order to determine the relative abundance of exotic fish. Our results suggest that exotic fish do have a higher relative abundance and proportion of biomass in the urban landscape, the canal habitat feature type, and the urban canal feature. Understanding patterns of exotic fish biomass and relative abundance in roadway corridor features could be useful for future management of these species in the South Florida region.